Modem Troubleshooting

As part of our ongoing effort to continually improve your Internet experience, NETDOOR maintains a policy of continual upgrades to our dial-up equipment. Therefore in order to get the best connection with NETDOOR it is always a good idea to keep your modem updated by visiting your modem manufacturer's web site to verify that you are using the latest firmware and/or drivers. You can also check out 56K.COM's Firmware page or visit the inits and drivers page to see if there is an init string or better yet a driver for your modem. If there is, download and install it. The inits and drivers page includes installation instructions. Even if the system is new that doesn't necessarily mean that you are using the latest software for your modem. Keep in mind that the software that was supplied with your modem was written to the CD or disk quite some time ago and updates are released quite frequently.If your modem supports interoperability (more than one 56K protocol), you may want to tell it which protocol (v.92, x2, or K56flex) it should use. The commands are listed on the interoperability page.

If you continue to experience difficulties after ensuring that the code on your modem is up-to-date, you may want to attempt to remove and reinstall the modem. If you need assistance in doing so, please contact a member of our technical support team and they will be glad to assist you in doing so as well as checking your system configuration to ensure optimum performance.

V.90

The new two-ping sound is an indication that you are connecting with a modem that supports the new international standard for 56K connections, v.92. There is nothing defined in the v.92 standard which will make v.92 modems perform any faster than the existing x2 or k56Flex modems, in fact a majority of users report a slight decrease in connection speed, however v.92 includes much improved line probing methods that allow for the connection rate to more accurately reflect the true throughput capacity of the line and therefore increases download speed and reliability.

WinModems

The trick to making a Winmodem work flawlessly is to keep your modem drivers updated regularly. Find out who your modem vendor is and look for their website to find out if you can upgrade your firmware/drivers online.If you have an LT WinModem you can find links to the latest drivers on 56k.com's Lucent LT Win Modem FAQ.

PCI MODEMS

From the experiences of the Tech Support here at Netdoor, we have concluded that PCI modems use a much different interface for negotiating the network protocols that are required to connect with our services. There are some issues that the manufacturers of these modems need to work out to make them more reliable. Most single-port PCI modems are software-based modems, meaning they use software to offload some or most of the work onto the computer. Among other things, this means that they tend to be operating-system dependent. Most will work with Windows 95/98. A few will work with Windows NT. Anything else is pretty much out of the question. In most cases, they also won't work with online games that run purely in DOS.